Mumbai

Mumbai (also known as Bombay, the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra.

In-depth Review of Matrimony Website by Anuroop Wiwaha (anuroopwiwaha.com)

Mandar Apte Apps, Art & Design, Company, India, Maharashtra, Mumbai, Personal Experience, Reviews, User Experience Design, Web Design Leave a comment

I am using the Anuroop Wiwaha Matrimony Website for the last four-five years. I have used their mobile Apple iPhone app and website extensively for my bride search all along. There are a few points that I discovered that Anuroop Wiwaha Portal / Company improve upon to help the community get the right matrimony match for their search.

Observations:

Few Points that they can improve on.

Mobile App & Website Portal:

  1. Every event they always talk about having 20,000 Profiles / Accounts of bride and groom registered on their portal. An average Anuroop Wiwaha account cost is INR 5,000/-.
  2. User (Bride or Groom) can’t register with a free account as they don’t support free accounts as the user has to pay an account fee upfront before registering to the portal. So it kind of gives assurance that user is at least serious about their search and even user has to submit identity proof within 7 days of registration. So in a way, it eliminates the possibility of fake accounts or frauds.
  3. Even with this money of 20,000 Accounts * 5,000 Fee, Bride or Groom Search is cumbersome and hectic. The mobile app is not full fledge as compared to a web portal. They are using non-native software technologies for the Apple iPhone app that app takes minutes to load or sometimes fails to load content and data.
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Uber Cabs Invoice Outstanding Payment Alert, A Technical Glitch or Accounting Error

Mandar Apte Apple, Apple iOS, Apps, Art & Design, India, Maharashtra, Mumbai, Personal Experience, Reviews, User Experience Design Leave a comment

I just travelled from Mumbai to Thane using Uber cabs. They rounded my bill before tax by 46 Paise. My trip was a cash trip.

My final cost of the trip after taxes applied was 160.05 INR.

But when I completed my trip I got notification from the Uber app that I have not paid 5 paise out of 160.05 INR using cash.

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Why typing Devanagari Alphabets (Marathi, Sanskrit, Hindi) on a personal computer is so difficult? And why typing Devanagari in Latin is so easy and preferred by many?

Mandar Apte Art & Design, India, Inspiration, Maharashtra, Mumbai, News, Personal Experience, Typography Leave a comment

I was planning to write this blog post for the last many years. I was facing this issue since I had my first Microsoft Windows Operating System based computer in the year 2002. And after that, it got solved partially on Mac in the year 2008. And I faced the issue of Marathi on the web when I had my website mandarapte.com in the year 2010 and then my community Marathi website chitpavankatta.com in the year 2012.

The idea of writing this blog post or writing documentation about why we face the problem of typing Marathi / Sanskrit / Hindi with Devanagari Script on Computer got more important when some category of journalists or people who started false propaganda to tell the Marathi population at large that Devanagari Script for the Marathi language is no more relevant anymore rather we should abandon Devanagari Script Alphabets and start using Latin Script to write the Marathi Language. An example was given by these people was that of the young generation who are writing or chatting or texting on their mobile phone using Facebook, Twitter or Instagram that they use Latin script to write Marathi than using Devanagari Script.

At that time I attended few lectures on Devanagari Calligraphy and Typography where I met an important person like Mr Mukund Gokhale from Pune who had done extensive work in building Marathi Typewriter with his two-three seniors in his field. He also worked with popular calligrapher, typographers to bring Devanagari on computer i.e. designing popular Devanagari fonts to be used on Computer. At that time I was working in IITB as a web designer. After that, I met Mukund Gokhale at his Pune home to discuss why Marathi Typing is so difficult and why it is targeted by anti-nationals who have no linguistic background to speak about abandoning Devanagari script itself. We discuss it at length he even showed me software that he has developed with his developer tech support to design Marathi based digital artworks and designs. It was his initiative to create an alternative solution to Adobe Photoshop / Adobe Illustrator who doesn’t support Devanagari Script in the year 2014/17. And now it’s the year 2021. Because of these long conversations on phone or personally meeting each other and I even developed the Devanagari Learning app for iPhone, iPad and Mac.

When this propaganda was started by abusing the Marathi language and falsely showcasing its irrelevance in today’s world. I talked with popular Hindu Orators who were tirelessly working to stop this propaganda. So people like me were middlemen between people like popular Hindu orators and calligrapher/typographer Mukund Gokhale to share knowledge and know-how between them and connect the dots.

So I am going to write here my observation that I got to learn while talking with Mukund Gokhale and some observations are of my capacity as I am myself designer and developer too who want to talk and design/develop in Marathi.

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In-depth Review of Matrimony Website by Suyog Ranade Vivaha aka Shree Suyog Vivaha Mandal

Mandar Apte Apps, Art & Design, India, Maharashtra, Mumbai, Reviews, User Experience Design, Web Design Leave a comment

Here I have written complete in-depth review and analysis of Suyog Ranade Vivaha or Shree Suyog Vivaha Mandal Matrimony website that I used for 6 to 7 months that was mainly on WhatsApp groups because of bad user experience on website format. I reported the following issues to them but they were not ready or in the right frame of mind to accept it.

So I just unregistered myself from their portal and get out of their WhatsApp groups.

Following are the points that I noticed about their matrimony service:

Point 01: No or Failed Business Model. Matrimony section mainly runs on WhatsApp Groups of 250 people. The group is unmanaged sometimes people post their profiles multiple times some peoples even post a political or comic forwards. Because of all members in open WhatsApp group, there is no contact number security or number privacy. Sometimes admins or business owners posts repeated WhatsApp Messages to asking every user to register and pay a fee to use WhatsApp group or website. Admins even warn users they will remove everyone who never pays matrimony section fee which showcases the main point that there is no thought behind Successful Business Model or Revenue Generation.

Point 02: No Privacy or Security: Because of the open group with visibility of contact numbers to everyone users are prone to scammers and fake profiles or spam calls

Point 03: Suyog Ranade Vivaha had a loss of complete user profile data and even registered accounts data three times while upgrading their website and also transferring the website to their new domain. They had to ask every user individually to reregister for their website again and again. A failed system.

Point 04: Website owners had to change Web Domain as similar web domain was used by its competitor with small name difference. It shows no thought about branding or company structure. Because of this duplicate domain by competitors, Suyog Ranade Vivavha’s Matrimony users were registering wrongly to competitors website thinking competitor that they are original company. This sows loss of identity and company branding. And a loss of revenue.

Point 05: Even you can see in screenshots website structure is broken and faulty with buggy coding and development.

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My new venture into selling Stock Photography on 500px.com

Mandar Apte Art & Design, Art of Mandar Apte, India, Maharashtra, Mumbai, Photography Leave a comment

From the start of being student of BFA (Bachelor of Fine Art) – Applied Art & even before that when I started with automatic film camera I was trying to be good photographer or may be I was.

 
Last year of my graduation I bought Canon A520 Point & Shoot camera & using that camera I shot almost 6,500 i.e. Six Thousand Photos over span of 10 Years. Plus photos taken from Mobile Phone Camera that may count more than another 2,000 i.e. Two thousand Photographs.

 
In Year August 2016 I bought iPhone. Using my latest iPhone I just shot another 2,200 Photos plus Slo-mo, Time-lapse & Videos in just 9 Months.

 
So with this collection more than 10,000 Photos I have decided to post it on Flickr & more importantly on 500px.com profile of mine so that I can sell them as stock photography & fetch some price for my work.

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Art & Design Competition in Maharashtra, India – ‘State Art’, Maharashtra State Art Competition by Directorate of Art Maharashtra State

Mandar Apte Art & Design, India, Maharashtra, Mumbai 7 Comments

This competition is famous with the name of ‘State Art’.

 
Competition Information & Admission Forms are issued in First Week of Month of November Every Year & Submission of Admission Form & Artwork for State Art are collected & submitted in next Month i.e Every 3rd or 4th Week of Month of December

 
Results are declared in January first or second week or so & Exhibition is scheduled for 7 days i.e Full Week in Months of February or March

 
Submission Requirements & Rules

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Why India Loosing at ‘Brain Drain’ on International Level to America (USA)

Mandar Apte India, Maharashtra, Mumbai Leave a comment

Being Indian, Student, Graduate, Employee, Business Man Myself & Friends of People who are just like me I have seen closely why India is loosing battle of Brain to USA – United States of America,

 
Here are few thoughts that I can sum up to determine why India is Facing ‘Brain Drain’ at highest level than any country on planet called ‘Earth’

 
Falling Indian Rupees Value

 
Today Indian Rupees stands 55 Rupees per 1 Dollar

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My Traveling Experience through Mumbai – Pune Expressway & Remembering Pixar’s Movie Cars

Mandar Apte Animation Film Design, Art & Design, India, Maharashtra, Mumbai Leave a comment

Last week I travelled to Theur near Hadapsar & Pune (India) just to visit & have blessings of Shree Chintamani. One of the Ashtavinayak Temple.

 
Today When I started to wrote down my experience of traveling through Mumbai Pune Expressway & bypassing Old Mumbai Pune Highway, It is just in resemblance to What Pixar Movie Cars stood for…!!!

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